


There Will Be Only Hope

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All Rey ever wanted was a family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Clothing, Dark!Rey, Evil Snoke, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Longing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:31:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Kylo Ren feels a call on Jakku.All Rey has ever wanted was to not be alone.





	1. Chapter 1

He felt the call as soon as they landed on Jakku, and it distracted him, tugging at his mind until finally he ordered the squad leader to take over and disappeared back into his ship.

The map was important, the _Resistance_ — but this was something else, something _more_.

This was something fated for him and him alone, and as he skimmed the surface of the desert planet he opened himself up to the Force, trying to tease meaning from it beyond the call, the imperative that had sunk into his belly and drawn him from his duty.

He felt the nexus of it just above the rusting hulk of a dead AT-AT, and he let the ship hover for a few moments, staring at the shadowed cracks in its husk, before he finally gave in completely and landed.

There was a meagre light coming from within, and he crept towards it, suddenly wary, before knocking on a piece of metal that looked like it might serve as a door.

No one answered, and a frisson of irritation rippled through him, immediately quelled by the nameless call. He would have been irritated by _that_ too, but he was not, apparently allowed, so he let himself drown in the curiosity and the _call_ and carefully shifted open the door.

Inside was a tiny hovel of a home, scrap fabric making up a pallet in the corner and a wide-eyed grubby girl slouched on it taking up most of the space.

He stopped, staring for just a few seconds, and she blurted out “What do you want?”

He laughed. “I don’t know, girl,” he admitted, and she glared at him.

“If you don’t know, you can very well leave, then.”

“No I can’t,” he said. “You feel it too,” he added. “I know you do.”

She stood up and reached for a staff of some sort, a hunk of repurposed metal with a scrap of cloth tied to it like a flag. “Fine. I’ll make you leave.”

Kylo held up his hands. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said as softly as he could manage. “I just want to meet you. To talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to anything that wears a mask like yours.”

He wanted to protest, but it seemed so… reasonable. “If I take off the mask, will you put down your weapon?”

“No,” she said, and he sighed. “Maybe. What will I see under it?”

“Me,” he said. “Just me.”

She shifted her grip on the staff and then relaxed. “Fine. You first.”

Since he’d been the one to suddenly burst in to her home, he couldn’t really argue with that. His mother might have something to say about his manners, but — he quashed the thoughts of her like the distraction they were and reached to undo the clasps that held the helmet in place, carefully pulling it off and then shaking his hair free of his face.

“Oh,” she said softly. Her staff went back to its place propped against the wall. Still within grabbing distance, but she could hardly do anything to hurt _him_ , he thought. “I didn’t expect that,” she said.

“What were you expecting?” he asked, setting his mask down on the ledge she apparently used as a table. The eating utensils alone were enough to make him recoil, and he thought, suddenly, that he should have grabbed some of the emergency rations from the ship before leaving it.

It was too late now, though, and he knew that if he went back for them, she’d be long gone into the desert night, and he couldn’t count on the Force to connect them again if he messed this up. The Force had its own ideas of who was worthy, sometimes.

“You’ll... you’ll laugh,” she said warily. “And I don’t have any extra portions,” she snapped. “I’ll fight you if you go looking for any.”

“I don’t want your portions,” Kylo said patiently. “What were you expecting?”

“Sometimes — sometimes I have dreams,” she said. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I won’t laugh,” he said. “I promise.”

“For a moment, just a moment, I thought if you took off your helmet, there’d be nothing there but… agony. And death.”

Kylo regretted his promise not to laugh, because he wanted to; she’d described him so perfectly that it made him want to sit down on the sandy metal floor and laugh hysterically.

He didn’t. His control was far better than that.

“You’re not wrong,” he said.

She shook her head. “I never am, really, but… it’s hard to explain.”

“Maybe I can,” he said, carefully peeling off a glove. “All your life, you’ve felt so alone. There’s nothing here for you; just sand and emptiness, heat and hunger and death, and somehow, despite all of that —” he was reaching now, with the Force, reading her without touch, a skill he had reason to be glad of in that moment. “Despite all of that, you can look at the stars and feel like you belong to the entirety of the galaxy, just for a minute at a time.”

“How… what are you doing to me?” she whispered. He took off his second glove and tucked them both tidily into his belt.

“I’m not doing anything to you,” he said. “I don’t know you; I’ve never even thought someone like you might still exist here on Jakku, or anywhere in the galaxy I can reach. But those feelings? That loneliness, that… belonging? _I feel it too_.”

Her eyes locked onto his face and her lips were parted with fascination. He offered her his hands, both of them, and held her gaze. “Come with me,” he said. “You’ll never be lonely again,” he added without consciously deciding to. It was the sort of promise he didn’t like making, and he could feel the way the Force was manipulating this moment, manipulating _them_. He wanted to be angry, but anger wouldn’t suit here: he didn’t need power, he needed finesse. And for finesse, he needed to trust in his feelings, in the Force, and he would do it if he had to, because she _had_ to say yes.

“I can’t!” she blurted out, turning part way and touching the far wall of the shelter. It was covered in tally marks that sank into his awareness and left him cold and desperate to take her hands.

“Please,” he said. “Please, I can’t leave you,” he said. “Not when you feel it too. Please.”

“My family won’t be able to find me,” she said.

 _Damn your family_ , he didn’t reply, but the words were in his throat, pressing against his teeth, fighting to come out.

“We can leave a comm,” he said. “Instructions to contact me. Please. I don’t even know your name, but I know —”

He couldn’t complete the sentence but he reached for her again, and this time she held out a dusty hand, reaching back.

She hesitated before she touched him though. “Sometimes, when I touch people,” she said. “Sometimes we see things.”

Kylo thrilled to hear it. She was so _powerful_ , more powerful than the Force eddying around her like a nexus of perfect balance had implied.

“I can prevent that,” he said. “If you like, I can even show you how.”

She bit her lip, frowning at their hands, and then with a soft sigh she slid her hand into his and he wrapped his free hand around it.

He _rocked_ with the contact, so pure and unfettered was the power she had, but he’d promised her he could prevent her from having any visions, and so he slammed up shields around them and sank into a deep meditation for long, long minutes.

“Wow,” he said, tugging on her hand once he had control. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Neither were you,” she said, sounding a bit awed in all the ways she should have sounded from the start.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said. “I couldn’t.”

And, he thought morosely, that was the truth.

***

She seemed both completely awed by and underwhelmed by the ship he’d borrowed, but he didn’t let her see how he felt about her reaction, just piloted with singular focus as she poked around the cabin, opening every drawer and pocketing things here and there. Whatever it was that had opened up between them when they’d touched or even when he’d landed on the planet echoed with her pure enjoyment of touching and looking and taking, so he didn’t say anything about it.

They landed at a village in flames and the air echoing with death and fury and desperation, and he opened himself up to it, letting the power of destruction he’d ordered well up inside him and rejuvenate him.

He strode out of the ship, helmet back on, and she trailed after him, looking all the less impressive against the backdrop of the clean crisp uniforms of the First Order and the sparkling newness of his ship.

“I trust this went well,” Kylo said blandly.

“Lord Ren, the Resistance pilot escaped with the map,” the squad leader informed him. There was a burble of resentment from someone in his squadron, but Kylo didn’t have the patience to chase it. There were people whose job it was to find those whose conditioning hadn’t taken, and he didn’t particularly like making any of their lives easier by doing it for them.

“That’s disappointing,” Kylo said, about to kill the man for his failure when suddenly the girl was at his side and staring at the stormtroopers with wide eyes.

“You’re First Order,” she said.

He took her hand again, the glove feeling bulky and awkward between them. “Yes,” he said. “Of course I am.”

He didn’t ask if it would be a problem: he wouldn’t allow it to be a problem.

She shook her head. “First Order credit’s better than Resistance anyway,” she said, almost to herself.

“Lord Ren —” the man was not, at least, stupid enough to ask outright about the girl.

“The map is unimportant. I’ve found something much more valuable,” he said. “We’ll return to the ship and inform General Hux of what you’ve learned here.”

“Of course, sir!” the trooper said, snapping a salute.

They were all bleeding relief around him and he wanted to rub his temples, but he’d need to take off the helmet for that and he knew from experience that the second he did they wouldn’t be even half as prone to obedience.

Power was in making people do what you willed, he thought. And it was much less effort to do that with intimidation than with the Force.

He settled into the back with the girl, pressed up against her thigh to shoulder so that she could wedge into the corner and not have to touch any of the conditioned troopers, and to his annoyance wound up next to the trooper who clearly needed to be sent for re-conditioning.

He had a bloody handprint on his helmet and kept fidgeting with his blaster, like that would make whatever was making him act against protocol go away.

“ _Stop_ ,” Kylo said, slapping a gloved hand on the trooper’s thigh.

He stopped.

“Can you teach me that too?” the girl asked.

“Of course,” Kylo replied. “I can teach you all of it.”

She looked at him, and then at the trooper. “I want to learn,” she said.

Kylo smiled right up until they’d docked and the overwhelming demand for his presence from Snoke almost sent him to his knees.

He cursed under his breath and cast about for someone, _anyone_ to take charge of the girl.

He needed someone who wouldn’t hand her over the second someone with authority demanded it, needed someone he could trust to actually handle her needs, needed…

He slammed into the mind of the trooper next to him, sifted through every resentment and petty thought that showed the conditioning had failed, and decided he would do for now.

“FN-2187,” he snapped. “I’m needed elsewhere. You’ll take the girl to get some clothing and to the mess, and then you will take her to my quarters. Do you know where they are?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, slamming the location into the trooper’s brain as he turned to the girl. He took her hand. “FN-2187 will take care of you while I’m in this meeting. I didn’t know I’d be summoned so soon, but when I come back you can start learning immediately.”

“Does he have a name?” she asked, leaning around Kylo and staring at the trooper.

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

“Sir,” the trooper said. “Lord Ren, Captain Phasma said there’d be a debrief, after, and —”

“I’m countermanding that,” he snapped. “You’ll stay with the girl until I relieve you. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir!” the trooper said, saluting awkwardly.

Kylo ignored him and swept off the ship.

Trust Snoke to — and that thought was dangerous, had the potential to be deadly, so he purged it from his mind and took a deep calming breath. He tried to think of his usual meditation visualizations, but all that came to him were the girl’s eyes, deep and trusting, and he gave up before the lift even arrived at the correct level.

General Hux was already there, and he glanced back, a slight smirk twisting his features. Kylo glared at him from under the mask. Snoke’s holocomm projection dominated the room, larger than life.

“General Hux informs me that you lost the map, my apprentice,” Snoke said. Kylo dropped to a knee just in time for the pain to hit, rolling waves of it burning through his every nerve.

He didn’t bother trying not to scream: Hux had heard it before, took pleasure in it, as far as Kylo could tell. Hux’s mind was uniquely closed to him. To Snoke, too, Kylo knew, which made him wonder sometimes why they trusted him, but perhaps Snoke simply felt the man too simple for ambition.

Kylo knew better. General Hux was a bully and a sadist and he was simply biding his time until Kylo fell out of favor and he could gain it.

“I found something better,” Kylo said through gritted teeth once the pain eased off enough to allow speech.

“Better than the only known clue to the master you’ve already failed to kill for me once’s location?” Snoke said, silky smooth.

“Yes,” Kylo said.

“I find myself doubtful, but do go on,” Snoke said.

“It’s a girl,” Hux interjected. “A little half-starved desert girl.”

Kylo smiled to himself. “Let me show you, Master,” he said. “You’ll understand.”

“A _girl_ ,” Snoke said, somehow making the epithet lascivious and distasteful. Kylo grimaced.

“Please, Master,” he said. “Look for yourself.”

Snoke leaned back and the holocomm projection shifted disconcertingly. “Interesting,” he said. “I will look.”

That was the only warning Kylo got before his mind was torn open and scattered for his master to sort through. Each memory, each impression, was pulled apart and analyzed, then shoved back in place haphazardly, so Kylo couldn’t help the way his hands were clutching at his head.

Someone pulled off his mask and he realized he had screamed himself silent.

Hands touched his forehead.

Snoke was laughing. “Better indeed. You think you can control her? You haven’t had luck in the past with your other little pets.”

“She’s a starveling girl from the desert,” Kylo said in a rasping, hoarse whisper. He’d need the medbay, he thought. “I’ll give her a few luxuries, whatever she wants to eat — she’ll never betray me and risk losing that.”

“When she proves you wrong, I expect you to bring me her head,” Snoke said.

Kylo blinked blood from his eyes and stared up at the holocomm and did something he hadn’t dared do in years.

“Of course, Master,” he lied.

He already knew he’d never be able to kill her — the moment for that had passed when she’d taken his hand.

Even now he could feel her, warm and perfect and still that low gut wrenching _call_ that had dragged him to her on the planet, decks away.

He could no more kill _himself_.

The holocomm shut off, and he realized the person helping him was Hux, hauling him to his feet and dabbing at the blood seeping from his tear ducts with a handkerchief.

“All of this for a girl,” Hux said, much less dismissively. “I never thought I’d see the day, honestly. Where is she now?”

“My quarters,” Kylo said.

“With FN-2187? I’m not surprised; even you would have seen that one.”

“Why did you send him down with me, if you knew?” Kylo asked, taking the handkerchief himself. He was certain this was the longest Hux had ever managed to be civil to him in their entire acquaintanceship.

“Just to see. You need _some_ independent thought, or if they get cut off from orders they die like fish in a barrel.”

Kylo grimaced.

“He didn’t fire his blaster once,” Hux said.

“I know,” Kylo replied. “He’s under my command for now, until I can find someone better.”

Hux snorted. “He’s _hers_ now. You’ve obviously no idea how this is going to go.”

Kylo reached through the Force for the shape of her, calling to him. Hux was wrong about that much at least.

Hux frowned and took a step back. “Med-bay,” he said. “And perhaps I’m wrong. I never did believe in love at first sight, but you look like you’ve come down with a bad case of hyper-rapture.”

“That’s the blood,” Kylo snapped. “I’m not in love with her.”

Hux scoffed but didn’t disagree outright; didn’t say anything more before leaving Kylo with the med droids clucking over the state he’d gotten his vocal cords into.


	2. Chapter 2

_“I’m countermanding that,” he snapped. “You’ll stay with the girl until I relieve you. Is that understood?”_

He swept off, and if Rey hadn’t had a sort of hook into his mind, his _feelings,_ since she’d taken his hand, she’d be angry at being shoved off onto some underling like he’d suddenly realized she wasn’t worth anything. As it was, though, she could feel the fear and the anger at the summons licking at his heels until he was well out of sight.

It was odd — she’d felt other people’s feelings before, sometimes even when they weren’t touching her, but never at such distance, or with such… _familiarity_.

“We need to… Lord Ren has a temper, if we disobey him, and Captain Phasma is going to be.. we should…”

“FN-2187,” Rey said. He shut up and turned to face her. The bloody handprint on his helmet made him look almost worse than the complete lack of humanity on Ren’s. She wondered at the purpose of such helmets — the Resistance didn’t wear anything like them, she knew from dealing with their dead alongside the dead of the First Order, so it couldn’t be for protection, she thought. “Did he — did Lord Ren say I could have new clothes?”

She hadn’t had anything new in years, making do with torn scraps and the things the scavengers had already picked over off the Star Destroyers in the desert. She rubbed her hands over her arms and stared off in the direction of Ren and then back at the trooper.

“Oh! Yes. We should, we can go to the quartermaster. She’ll know what to do with you; I don’t think you’re an officer, but neither is Lord Ren and she’s always complaining about his clothes, so she’ll understand.”

FN-2187 seemed liable to keep going on at length, so she touched him and said “ _Stop_ ” in exactly the same way Lord Ren had, that _power_ that had flickered between her and the stars, between her and strangers, out of her conscious control for so long licking through the word and making him freeze.

_Too much_ , the part of her that was constantly analyzing broken things for repairs said, and she noted it. Even if Ren was lying and wouldn’t teach her a thing, she had figured this much out.

She didn’t think he was lying, actually, which surprised her. She knew men with power and money, and they often lied, especially to people they knew couldn’t do anything about it, but Ren had pulled out _actual paper_ and a pen and written out a note in clear block letters in simple script and then left a comm device. She’d tucked the note and the holocomm behind her doll, and he’d reached for it.

“I don’t need it,” she’d said, and he’d just taken her hand again.

Anyway, a man willing to just leave behind a state of the art holocomm because he’d made a promise to some scavenger girl — Rey was inclined to think he wouldn’t lie to her.

Not to mention she’d been able to feel his anger and his fear. Who was to say she wouldn’t be able to feel his dishonesty too?

“Show me where the quartermaster is,” she said finally, and the trooper nodded jerkily and then offered her his hand. She jerked hers back and tucked them behind herself childishly, feeling sheepish after just a second. He didn’t seem to notice, just dropped his hand and turned smartly to lead the way out of the hangar.

Once they were out into the corridor, Rey realized that she was in an actual, active Star Destroyer, and her fingers _itched_ to pry away a panel here, where she knew she’d find a converter worth a whole portion, or there where there was an array of capacitors that she’d been craving for her speeder for months.

She kept her hands tucked neatly behind her and kept apace of FN-2187, letting him lead her down the winding, familiar corridors until they reached a door that was set back from a junction.

“Here,” he said, opening the door and gesturing her to enter first.

Rey stopped short.

The room was _packed_ with things, more things than she’d ever seen in her life all at once. Blasters and clothing and _shoes_ ; so many different types of boots that she could hardly decide what anyone would need so many kinds of shoes for, and clothing and shining bits of metal in a variety of shapes and designs.

She leaned forward and poked at one that appealed to her, a series of blood red diamonds on a field of jet enamel, and FN-2187 gently pulled her away.

She pocketed the little bauble and turned to stare at the woman who had to be the quartermaster.

“Ma’am,” FN-2187 said. “Lord Ren said she was to be given clothing, and a chit for the mess.”

“And a suite of rooms, I assume? Conveniently adjacent to his so he can dress her up like a lady and pretend someone likes him? Hmph,” she said.

“No,” Rey replied. “He’s going to _train_ me, and he said for FN-2187 to take me to _his_ quarters. I would like some new clothing though,” she said, and she couldn’t help the way it came out all wistful. Normally she didn’t let herself daydream hard enough that it showed through in her voice and her face, but she was on a real, _flying_ Star Destroyer, and who really cared about the rest.

“Train you?” the quartermaster asked, and suddenly Rey’s entire being was overwhelmed with pain. She felt durasteel under her palms and knees and scrabbled at it, desperate not to fall, suddenly completely unaware of where she was or what was going on.

It felt like an echo of pain, she realized, muted and stretched out across a distance, and as it slowly dawned on her that this was _Ren’s_ pain, it ended.

“Kriff,” the quartermaster said. “You shouldn’t go around saying that,” she added. “Not until you’ve got the skills to back it up. This isn’t the sort of place to be bragging about favors from a Sith Lord.”

Rey groaned. FN-2187 hauled her back to her feet. “What was that?” he asked, voice shaky. Rey pushed him away, then swayed and changed her mind and clung to him. He stayed gamely still, holding her steady. “You need to clean that up,” she said. “It makes you look like a monster from a story.”

“I’ve pulled him a new issue,” the quartermaster said. “Now, let me look at her, FN, I need to get a good size for her.”

She closed the distance between them then and lifted Rey’s arm and poked at her waist, frowning all the while.

“Hmph,” she said again. “Too kriffing scrawny to make any of this work. Oh well, I’ll give you something for now and then take some tunics in for you. You’ll do.”

She went to the stacks and stacks of clothing and grabbed more garments than Rey’d owned at one time in her life, then dropped a pair of boots on top before offering FN the stack. He’d changed his helmet, she saw.

“You! Don’t put those on until you’ve spent some quality time in the ‘fresher, got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Rey said, suddenly highly conscious of her sandy, dusty state. Not like she could help it; she’d lived in the desert up until five minutes ago.

The pain came again before they left, but she knew it wasn’t hers, this time, and she sort of … shoved it away so that she could see to walk down the hallway with FN, who kept reaching out to steady her and then jerking his hands back.

“You! FN-2187!” someone shouted behind them, and Rey whirled, her staff coming easily to hand and her teeth baring in a threat response she knew rarely worked on humans but had gotten too used to displaying regardless.

Besides, there was no way to tell if the being striding up to them _was_ a human, so maybe.

“Why did you not report to debriefing?” the person demanded.

“Ma’am, I had, Lord Ren —”

“And is Lord Ren your commander, or am I?” the person asked.

“Lord Ren ordered him to escort _me_ ,” Rey said firmly. “I’ve never even heard of you in my life.”

The person gave her a slow once over and made a disgusted noise. “You hardly need an escort. FN-2187, you will return to your quarters at once and await me there.”

“No,” Rey said, her hand flying out as if of its own volition. “He won’t.”

“Excuse me?”

Rey frowned, pressed out with the new control of the power that had always huddled inside of her. “Stop.” she ordered. It had worked well enough before, and this time the person froze. “You need to go now,” she added. “You have urgent business in…”

“Engineering,” FN whispered.

“Engineering,” Rey repeated. “You didn’t see anyone here. You have to go now.”

“There’s no one here,” the person said, sounding dazed. “I have to go to Engineering, now.”

The person turned and stumbled off, righting their balance at the corner and then disappearing from sight.

“That… that was _amazing_ ,” FN said, sounding completely delighted. “I didn’t think even Ren could make her stop when she went on a tear like that. How did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “He promised he’d teach me.”

FN nodded, his helmeted head bobbing eagerly. “Maybe you could show me, too.”

“I don’t know if it works like that,” Rey said. Her knees felt weak and she wanted desperately to go back down to her little AT-AT and the privacy and solitude of her former existence.

“Whatever. That was still awesome. Come on; I hear that the officers don’t have a water allowance at all. You’ll _love_ the ‘fresher.”

“Why would you need a water allowance for the fresher?” Rey asked.

“You don’t — no, of course. Jakku! Duh. Oh, man, this is going to be great!”

It was, actually, she thought, pretty great. She’d never seen so much water at once in her life, and the idea that this was normal, not just for Ren who gave orders and expected them to be obeyed, but also for FN-2187 who wasn’t even important enough to have a _name_ , made her decide then and there that when her family found her, they were joining her _here_. She wasn’t going back to Jakku for love or all the credits in the galaxy.

When she finally forced herself to leave, FN had left some clothing for her, some of which made sense and some of which she’d no idea what to do with. She fought with it for a few moments before opening the door back out to the rest of Ren’s quarters.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

FN-2187 had his helmet off and he glanced up at her and then away quickly, rubbing at his eyes in a way Rey knew not to ask about.

“Please,” she said.

He stood up and looked everywhere but at her, and then grabbed the next piece of clothing on the pile and carefully helped her with it, his hands clumsy in his effort not to — to what?

“I don’t mind if you look,” she said. “I can stop you now. I can stop _anyone_ ,” she added, realizing that. She could make _anyone_ listen to her, just for reaching for that thread of power, and that meant… she could do _anything_.

“It’s not, it isn’t right, is all,” FN said, but he did look at what he was doing, and between the two of them she was wrapped up in new dark cloth in no time at all.

It was warm, which was a relief against the chill of the ship she’d been desperately trying to ignore.

“I’ve got a mess card for you,” FN said. He handed it to her. She turned it over in her fingers and analyzed the spot where it would be inserted into a reader.

“How many portions does it get us?” she asked. “How do they know what you’ve earned?”

“Portions?” FN said, staring at her. “I don’t get it. Sorry.”

She shook her head.

“You can tell me,” he said. “I wouldn’t laugh. I mean, why would I — I don’t know anything but _this_ , you know? I’ve never lived in a place like Jakku, or anything like that. Where did Lord Ren even _get_ you?”

Rey stared at him and hefted the card in her hand. “Ren said we should go to the mess,” she said. “I’ll see the answer soon enough.”

FN nodded, and then reached for his helmet.

“Wait,” she said. “Don’t. You don’t like that.”

He gave her a funny look, and Rey realized belatedly that that was, yet again, the sort of thing that she shouldn’t know about people.

He didn’t comment on that though, just said softly, “I have to. It’s okay; let’s go.”

She felt as uneasy as he did once the helmet was back in place, but she let him lead the way back out of Ren’s quarters.

The mess was a long room lined with durasteel tables and crowded with Stormtroopers and people dressed all in dark like she was alike, metal trays and utensils like shiny, new versions of the ones she’d left behind on Jakku set out near the door.

FN took a set, and she mimicked his actions, then trailed behind him until they got to a crazy counter filled up with the most food she’d ever seen in her life.

“Oh, _Force_ ,” she hissed.

FN reached for her and squeezed her forearm, and she stiffened, but nothing happened, not with the crowd around them, she figured. Or maybe nothing would happen since it hadn’t yet. Still, she wasn’t used to people just touching her.

“Take whatever you like,” FN said in an undertone, and as she watched him piling protein on his tray and grabbing three rolls, she felt her mouth suddenly start watering. She mimicked him again, taking exactly what he took, still somehow convinced it was all a trick and someone, Unkar maybe, was going to leap out and take all the food away from her.

She didn’t mean to scarf it, really, but she did, filling her mouth and belly as quickly as possible, and feeling abruptly self conscious once it was gone. More than a few people were staring at her, and FN was only about a third of the way through his portions.

“You can get more,” he suggested. She shook her head and shoved her tray away. A pair of stormtroopers stood up, and one of them leaned across the table to take her tray, smiling at her a little where the officers couldn’t see. She smiled back, tremulously, and he spared a wink for her before turning away.

FN was watching him with an amused quirk around his lips. “He’s not usually that brave,” FN said in an undertone.

“What?” she asked, but he refused to clarify, just shaking his slightly and hunching down in on himself when a group of officers all in black suddenly joined them at the table.

“New here, Lieutenant?” one of them asked, sounding not at all kind. Rey bared her teeth at him but didn’t deign to respond.

“Now, now,” he said. “I don’t know what backwater station you’ve held before now, but here on Lord Ren’s flagship, we recognize rank. And we _don’t_ dine with the enlisted corps.”

Rey blinked at him. “I don’t have a rank,” she said. “I came here for food,” she added. Maybe she should have gotten more; then she’d have an excuse to ignore them.

“Don’t you?”

“She doesn’t, sir,” FN said in submissive tones. “Lord Ren said I was to guard her, is all. She’s not an officer at all, sir. She’s a _dignitary_.”

There was a moment of silence, and then raucous laughter from the whole group of them, and one of them pulled out a handful of credits to hand to another, and Rey could feel heat from her toes to the roots of her hair.

She stood up, and FN was only a breath behind her. “I’m finished eating,” she said as coolly as she could, channelling what she imagined an actual dignitary would do.

“I’ll escort you back immediately,” FN said, and this time he didn’t reach for her hands, but she tucked hers behind her back anyway, toying with her staff.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone at the [Mos Eisley Cantina discord server](https://discord.gg/XNJ6JJP) for your help and encouragement!


End file.
